Teruma

This weekly Torah portion Teruma opens with the words: “Speak unto Israel that they take for Me an offering… And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them”. The Zohar on Teruma sets the foundations of one of the most important principle to one’s success. This principle will determine whether we could look back at the end of our days and feel that we’ve lived fulfilling life rather than aimless painful life.

The secret lies in the word Teruma, which means “donation”. However, in Hebrew the grammatical root of this word’s is ה.ר.מ (H.R.M) which means “to raise”. The Zohar explains that when the word Teurma can be read as: Tarom Hey (elevating the letter ה Hey). According to Kabbalah, the letterה (the lastה on God’s name – יהו”ה) represents Sefirat Malkhut which symbolizes our physical reality, our desires, urges and needs.

The Ari explains that the physical reality that we experience, the reality that mirrors the limitations of our senses, is a result of the location of the letter Hey – ה in the Tree of Life:

When the Hey is located in its original place – at the end of God’s name יהו”ה, and connected to the other letters – everything works perfectly in our life, there is a flow of Light, abundance; this is when we feel wholeness.

When the Hey -ה , Malkhut is in a state of exile, disconnected and exiled from its natural place in The Tree of Life, as a result of the wrong awareness – selfishness, anger, guilt, jealousy, pride, despair, etc.; this is disconnected from the power of life.

The world we are living in is divided into two realities: one is connected to the power of life and the other is disconnected. A reality of Gola (exile – גולה) versus reality of Geula (redemption – גאולה), when the difference between the two is the presence of the letter א of the word Or (light – אור). The moment we allow the Light into our life we will experience success in turning the Gola (exile) into Geula (redemption).

The connection to the light is done by actions with an awareness meant to elevate our life from a low frequency (Gola) to a high frequency (Geula); from a frequency of disconnection, darkness, shortage, pain and misery to a frequency of a connection to the Creator’s Light, love, joy, abundance and blessings. Hence, the word Teruma is not describing as an action of giving but the consequence that the giver experiences when he/she share.

Any action that involves altruism, love, caring, compassion and sensitivity, brings us closer to the upper worlds, and that is the secret of life. When we manage to care for our fellowman instead of caring just for ourselves; then the ה will be elevated. When everything we do will have an awareness of Teruma –love and sharing – then there will be a flow between the upper worlds and the lower ones.

This is when we manage to assimilate the frequency of Kedusha (sanctity) in what we do: the home that we build, our family, business, etc. Then “And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them” – “among them” and not “in it”. Then we, the creation and the creation’s abundance are all one, in a perfect unity, and that is the secret of true success.